If you were getting tired of the Is-the-Michael-Hancock-story-really-a-story debate, good news. The proposed Gaylord Hotel development in Aurora is the newest catfight in town, and it is splitting Denver’s PR community. On one side are Wendy Aiello (repping Aurora) and Pete Webb (repping Gaylord). And on the other side is Andrew Hudson, who doesn’t want to see the Stock Show relocate from Denver.
And if you aren’t tired of the Michael Hancock debate, Big Media blogger Jason Salzman takes Denver media to task for running with a story that was broken by a guy using rampant rumors as a source.
Denver Public Relations Blog 
Sorry – there’s no showdown at the O.K. Corral here. Kind of two different issues.
Wendy and Pete have to convince the State Legislature to give Gaylord $300 million in tax breaks – the largest corporate tax subsidy in the history of the State of Colorado – to build there Aurora-Mega-Entertainment-Complex. There’s way more powerful people then me to convince that’s a good thing. Gaylord and Aurora are smart to hire Wendy and Pete – they’ve got two of the best people to help them.
But how about we give $50,000 to to 600 new start-ups instead? I’ll bet we’d get a lot more out of it.
On the Denver side, the Stock Show wants out of its lease with the City and wants the City to give them $150 million to relocate next to the Gaylord mega-entertainment complex (but on the Denver side of the border) I (and many others) don’t think that is necessary.
According to Gaylord, the relocation of the Stock Show is ‘nice’ but not necessary for their plans.